Tasting: Opaque in the glass with a dusky plum rim. Dusty blackberry coffeecake with hints of cassis that take on weight as the wine opens up. Before you know it, blueberry, dark chocolate and hazelnut come to the fore before shifting to dusty plums, graphite and earth. Youthful and gregarious, this ever-shifting Cabernet is ripe with complexity. Smooth on entry with chocolate, plums and blackberry fruit coating youthful tannins that dominate the lengthy finish. Well balanced.
Appellation: 74% Napa Valley (vineyard sandwiched between Coombsville and Atlas Peak AVA’s), 21% Coombsville, and 5% Rutherford.
Yep, that’s about as much info as you get with Kirkland Signature Napa and it’s also $10 (and not something I want to drink or a case of taking room in my cellar)
Do you understand how his model works? What sort of additional information are you looking for? He tells you the vintage, where the grapes come from, and gives you a tasting note (for what that’s worth). Did you want to know the name of the wine maker? The astrological sign of the tasting room manager’s dog?
At $10 a bottle, given the track record of Mr. Hughes, I don’t know why anyone would need additional information. Whether or not you buy it, that is entirely a judgment call on your part.
Alcohol by volume and oak treatment should be included with everything. I want to know secondary characteristics. If it’s 16% and 24 months in new American oak, that’s an easy pass for me. I’m not asking for dry farmed, biodynamic, ancient vines for that price, I just want to know it’s not an oak monster and Parkerized.
Honestly this specific offering isn’t really up my alley, but I see how it could be considered a great offer to a lot of people. And for a small negociant to offer something that could be on par with Kirkland I think is pretty cool. If this was from Rioja, I’d absolutely roll the dice on it…
The tasting note contains a lot of references to very sweet things like blueberry cobbler. Without knowing RS, this scares me off because I don’t need a case of wine at any price that I won’t drink.